The Spirit of Hidalgo: The Mexican Revolution in Coahuila (review)

The domination of regional history in the study of the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz (1877-1911) and the Mexican revolution has endured for nearly forty years. The first generation of this history emphasized politics, economics, and powerful families. The most recent trend in regional investigations has been to illuminate the role of the popular classes and restore the importance of the agrarian revolution. Suzanne Pasztor's rendition of the revolution in the state of Coahuila is a return to the earlier model of regional history based on politics and personalities.

Coahuila was a crucial region in the history of the Mexican revolution because it spawned two of its most important leaders, Francisco I. Madero and Venustiano Carranza, both of whom came from families with large landholdings. Pasztor argues that the development of the revolution in Coahuila resulted from the popular reaction to economic modernization and its accompanying dislocations and the response of the state's political system to this popular discontent. The author analyzes the revolution in Coahuila primarily through the prism of Venustiano Carranza.

Nineteenth-century Coahuila divided into four distinct areas: the north, which included the border along the Rio Grande; the center, whose major city was Monclova; the Laguna, in the southwest, with Torreón; and the southeast, comprised of Saltillo, the state capital, and Parras. Pasztor succinctly describes each district's economic and political peculiarities and the regionally-based cliques, known as camarillas, which dominated the state's politics and economy before 1910. The Madero family, of course, headed one such group and the Carranzas were important members of another rival faction.

Pasztor's favorable assessment of Carranza and her interpretation of the Carranza-Villa rivalry are a bit of a surprise given the recent historiography. Both Alan Knight in The Mexican Revolution and Friedrich Katz in his The Life and Times of Pancho Villa are critical of Carranza, portraying him as a ruthless opportunist. Instead, she mirrors the evaluation of Douglas Richmond in his biography of the First Chief, Venustiano Carranza's Nationalist Struggle (1984).(See the first six citations in chapter 8.) She attributes Carranza's rise to his defense of local home rule and his ability to win over working-class support. By contrast, she saves her harshest assessment for Carranza's chief rival Pancho Villa: "Villismo appeared in Coahuila primarily as an agency of further destruction" (p. 129). Pasztor, nonetheless, admits that in 1914 and 1915 Villa controlled half of Coahuila and that he was very popular among rural workers. Villa remained strong among rural people hoping for agrarian reform. She believes Carranza's ultimate victory owed to his ability to maintain his popular support, most importantly among miners. Carranza also kept strong support from Coahuilan upper classes.

The book's strongest chapter describes Coahuilan politics from 1915 to 1920. Here she reveals the real Carrancista program. His henchmen used land reform as a weapon against their enemies. Property confiscations took place most heavily in the areas where rivals were landowners. The Maderos, for example, suffered considerable losses. The First Chief's disdain for land reform was so great, however, that he returned even the Maderos' lands after 1917. In Carranza's Coahuila, moreover, there were no free and open elections. The state government persisted in interfering in local affairs. Thus, in the core area of revolutionary struggle it appeared that it had been fought in vain. Pasztor's interpretation is that Carranza was acting moderately and judiciously in trying to rebuild Mexico.

The emphasis on Carranza pushes aside the story of municipal home rule, discontented classes, and political camarillas in Coahuila after 1911. Surely, there was more to the state than Don Venustiano.